Cloak of War Read online

  I snap back that drink and slam the shot glass onto the bar. Good thing the drink is free, because it tastes foul. Do I owe them? That old sense of debt comes back to me. They all saved my life. Not just mine, but Henna’s too.

  Now, I can’t say I don’t think of my career. The commodore’s words are still fresh. And it’s not exactly looking like this war is going to end any time soon. If I leave, I’ll end up in some half-rate transport with zero potential for advancement. If I stay, I can distinguish myself and possibly keep moving up in the world.

  “What of Magnus?”

  Yao looks at the doctor and shrugs.

  “If he clears the flotilla surgeon, they’ll release him for duty.”

  “And if not?”

  “Then Yao takes the command till the refit is complete,” Colby says.

  I’m willing to take those odds. “Right, count me in.”

  Later that day, we meet with the commodore. He needs the Orca on patrol. Plain and simple. It could be stuck in port for months while he waits for a replacement captain, and that is unacceptable. A fresh packet of encrypted orders came through a week before we arrived: one is just for us.

  The question of Hallverson was as the doctor said. He won’t be returned to duty until the surgeon clears him.

  We leave without much of a plan.

  Instead, we focus on getting the Orca ready. In the course of a few days, the ship goes from a total wreck to a nearly complete warship. Everything is modular, so it goes together almost as quickly as it came apart.

  Then, in the course of a day, three things happen. First, the Orca finishes up her rework. The foreman signs off with a flourish, and even Colby has to admit it’s a job well done. Second, the pawn leaves. It simply releases from the orbital, drifts out, and bounces away.

  And third, Captain Magnus Hallverson returns to duty.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The next few days are a whirlwind of packing, provisioning, testing, and drilling. Where Captain Hallverson was a wreck before, now he seems honed to a razor edge. And that razor cuts quickly and without hesitation.

  His eyes are like superfocused lasers, and his voice has the punch of a midcareer heavyweight. Nothing is missed. No stray wire. No manufacturing fault. No personal faults. He sees them all.

  So in that time, I barely sleep. And when I do, the captain seems kind enough to find me, wake me, and point out some flaw. He never speaks of our little boxing incident. No one does, for that matter.

  The commodore and the captain have a closed-door meeting the day the surgeon clears him. I’m not sure what’s said; I don’t think anyone knows beyond the commodore. But when the door opens, the captain is once again the captain.

  For the first time, I’m able to spend some time with Henna. The captain restarts my rotation of duties, and I help the reactor crew get situated with the remanufactured cooker.

  The cooker is a fairly straightforward item. Insert a single-point core, allow it to react with a very high-energy radioactive material, and harvest the output. Sounds simple, right?

  I walk into the reactor room thinking of it like a magical refrigerator. The engineers aren’t even on the same wavelength. They try to explain the cooker’s nuances on that first day. They stop soon enough.

  The Orca has two engineers and five technicians. Henna allows them to finally get onto a fair rotation. No more twelve-hour shifts for them. She is a welcome addition to the crew, a bit different than the welcome Huttola had for me not long ago.

  It’s the night before we’re set to depart, and I spend it watching ramp-up tests on the cooker. Henna runs it solo; it’s to simulate her being the last engineer alive. These sorts of tests are a fine chance to test the output. Drill, drill, and more drill.

  I pace between readouts. There is a master display, but she wants numbers off the panels themselves. “Eight rads in chamber two. Seventy-four percent efficiency. Uh, a wave ratio of fourteen.”

  Henna repeats my readings and marks them down.

  “You ready to roll tomorrow?” I say to her.

  Henna looks up from her tablet. “The reactor will be properly tested.”

  “I mean, are you ready? I know the reactor is fine.” Leave it to an engineer to immediately think of the machine first.

  This time, her reaction is a bit different. She grits her teeth and studies the console. Finally, the silence of me not speaking convinces her to say something. “I guess…”

  “It’s a weird ship, isn’t it?”

  She sets the tablet down and looks right at me. “Do you feel like a complete outsider here? Like neither of us are welcome?”

  “Every time I walk through a bulkhead.”

  Henna nods and picks up her tablet. “Me too.”

  “You know they all intended to die back at the start of the war?”

  “I know.”

  “So why’d you stay with the ship?”

  “The commodore…” Her words drift.

  I know the commodore has given her an out too.

  “Duty, I guess? I mean, they needed one more rated engineer.” She leans over and punches my arm. “And what about you?”

  “Commodore basically said I was a shitty officer with a shitty record and could look forward to steering a garbage scow for the rest of my career.”

  “Well, you weren’t exactly a stellar captain before.” She says it in a low, serious voice.

  “Hey! Come on, I saved your ass.”

  “I know, I know! But come on, you know it too.”

  She’s right. Of course. It’s hard to look at that mirror. There’s still a good bit of frat boy in me. For the good and the bad.

  “Well, if all else, we can trust each other.”

  Henna looks up with a smile. Little dimples crease just above the corners of her mouth. She brushes away a bit of hair. “Yes. Yes, we can.”

  We finish off that drill and the remainder of the watch. Getting the oddness of the ship off my chest makes me feel a helluva lot better. At least in Henna I have someone I can confide in, someone who’s had the same experiences as me. That must be how the rest of the crew feels. Isolated.

  One big question remains, and that is our orders.

  Captain Hallverson wakes me with a hand on my shoulder early the next morning. I sit up, and he stuffs a cup of coffee into my hands. The smell helps me brighten a bit.

  “Come with me. Staff meeting.”

  The ship is brimming with boxes and supplies. Webbing and cords attach stuff to every single surface. Cases of potatoes. Fresh fruits. Even bread. That stuff will spoil first, so it’s stowed where we can get it immediately. Deeper beneath the stacks are the long-term rations. Long-term as in forever. I don’t need to tell you how yummy long-term rations taste. Like paste and iron.

  I follow Captain Hallverson and sit down beside Yao. The first officer doesn’t need the bag of ice anymore, but he still walks funny.

  “I’m opening orders. Do you concur, gentlemen?” Captain Hallverson says with a serious face. Before him is a simple tablet with three boxes on the screen.

  Yao stamps his thumb into one of them. I place my thumb into the other. Captain Hallverson takes the third.

  Captain Hallverson brings the tablet close to his face. His lips move as he reads the orders, but he doesn’t say anything. I watch his eyes go from side to side and then up and down to read it all once more. It feels like it takes forever.

  It’s worth mentioning the betting pool for the orders. I think it’ll help break some tension with the crew. Now, I’m not in the pool, but I’m helping to run it. Me and a sharp boy from Communications set odds on orders, and a good portion of the crew picked the options.

  Our guesses range from go on patrol, one-to-one odds, all the way to attack Tyrolean home world, one thousand to one.

  Captain Hallverson clears his throat. “Orca. Proceed half a day’s travel via bounce. Do not cloak. Do not engage hostile forces. Encrypted orders will follow. Conditional orders are in effect.”


  “What’s that mean, sir?” I ask with a disappointed tone in my voice. That wasn’t something we have odds for. I’ll have to stretch the betting out.

  “These are orders to take us out. Then we decrypt the real orders.”

  “And the conditional part?”

  Captain Hallverson sets the tablet down. A thin smile breaks across his face. “It means the ship’s AI will change the orders based on conditional factors like supply status, date, ordnance availability—anything, really.”

  This makes me uneasy. But it makes sense. Not much use to send someone out with inflexible orders that won’t serve the needs of the navy. We have no idea what kind of battle plans could come forth. Maybe we’ll go on patrol. Maybe we’ll be sent to reinforce and screen for a massive fleet battle.

  “Come now, Mr. Jager,” Captain Hallverson says as he claps me on the shoulder. “Your betting pool isn’t a failure yet. I’ve still got odds on a commerce raid.”

  I grin at him. The Comms tech must’ve taken his bet.

  Yao mumbles, “I’ve got my money on a planetary strike.”

  “Bid better, that’s a long odd.”

  Yao shrugs. His sense of fatalism seems to have returned.

  “Mr. Yao, you have second watch. Mr. Jager, get the bridge ready. We depart in one hour.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  As I mentioned, I don’t know what was said between the commodore and the captain. There is definitely some history between the two. I guess not all good. But Captain Hallverson is an intense man.

  How he managed to get out of a pickle like that was beyond me. I want to ask him, to see what he pulled. But how do you ask someone about going crazy? Or about reliving the loss of their children?

  Not that it matters. We are about to head out and open an encrypted set of orders. I’m still amazed at the condition of the ship. The tradesfolk have the process down to a science. For all of our warm-up tests, we rarely find any issues.

  Now I imagine they’ll finally sleep for a few weeks until the next Orca-class ship comes in for a refit. Or, knowing the pipe fitters and boilermakers, they’ll just get shit-faced drunk for three weeks.

  I make my way to the bridge and stand near the door. No one says anything, so I remain where I am. The crew just sits and waits. Yao is standing in front of the captain’s chair, as he always does. Yao turns and gives me a nod. The bridge crew give me a glance but pay me no mind. They slowly break into banter and idle conversation. I listen to a crewman named Hauser discuss his position in the betting pool and the rationale behind his decision.

  “It ain’t gonna be no commerce run. We’re beyond that now. You see, right? It’ll be a deep strike, no, no! You listen, Wiltz, I’m telling you, look at our refit, we’re going deep. I saw it with the bigger supply stores, and the bigger sauce tank, right? Right?”

  The crew is normally silent as a row of headstones, but now they almost seem chatty. I am one of them now, or as close as I can be. Hartford says it’s like finding a lost puppy and making him your own.

  The bulkhead swings open. Captain Hallverson ducks beneath and swings through. He claps me on the shoulder and squeezes past. That’s something I definitely didn’t expect.

  “It’s a beautiful day to take her out.” His voice is strong, excited, eager. This isn’t the same angry, sullen, hulk that I pummeled a week before. “Would you agree, Mr. Jager?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Yao is relieved and steps off the bridge. Captain Hallverson walks up the edge and stops. He glances at the crew and then back at me. “Mr. Jager, please take us out. You’ve earned that privilege.”

  His face is sincere, almost humble. It takes me a moment to realize his offer. I step up, and he takes my hand in his and gives it a firm squeeze. He leans close. “Thank you.”

  I sit, and Captain Hallverson takes position over my left shoulder.

  Here we are, an entirely new ship, or as new as it needs to be. Our cloaking gas is topped up, enough for dozens of invisible torpedo runs. We have fresh torpedoes, the new models with a slightly higher acceleration rate. The only things that aren’t new are the crew themselves. But even they, like Captain Hallverson, have a fresh feeling.

  How long can you hate? How long until life intervenes and you learn to start living again?

  “Comms, request permission to depart.”

  The Comms station calls in to the commodore. Until we leave, it is “his” ship.

  “Orca,” calls a woman’s voice over the comms. “Good hunting, and Godspeed.”

  We accelerate out of the gaping maw of that refitted freighter at the barest snail’s pace. I watch every dial, indicator, readout, and screen for any issue or problem.

  This is one hell of a moment. I am in command of what is basically a new ship, taking her out into the wild. It is an honor, and one bestowed upon me by Captain Hallverson. I sneak a glance at a readout over my left shoulder. Though really I want to see the look on his face.

  He looks pleased. Not just pleased; I’d call it satisfied.

  Pride wells inside of me and seems to almost burst. I’m sure there is a giant grin on my face, but damned if I can get rid of it. Even though I had command of a missile boat, I never felt like this. This feels real. This feels honest. This feels like the future.

  From that moment on, I decide my goal is to have my own ship. My own command. My own destiny. Melodramatic? Maybe. But by God, I’ve earned this moment.

  “Prep for gas deployment. All stations confirm ready status. Astrogation, set us a course.” I rattle off the orders and watch as they are repeated and relayed.

  Not that the crews have to do much; this is all second nature for them. It’s standard procedure to always be ready to deploy the cloaking gas. It’s also standard procedure to keep a course laid in, dozens of them. Paranoia is second nature to an Orca-class ship.

  Finally comes the call that we are clear of the freighter. The commodore comes on and gives us the final call. His words make it official. “Orca. Give ’em hell.”

  I watch the view screen. The freighter looks about as old and beat up as our ship did when it came in for a refit. That filthy pig of a ship will be a welcome sight if we come back through this way.

  For now, I’m eager to get clear and see what the real orders show.

  “Contact!” Raj calls out. “Bounce coming in. It’s that pawn!”

  And there is the issue of getting out with no escort. All they had to do was watch from a few light-seconds away. Our sensors wouldn’t pick them up until they were about to bounce in on us.

  I stand. This is Captain Hallverson’s post. Taking her out is one thing; dealing with an incoming hostile is another.

  “Stay.” His voice is sure. “You’ve got the chair.”

  “Purge all lines! Gas deploy on my call!” We have to do two things: one, a radical course change, and two, deploy the gas at the perfect moment so that the Tyroleans don’t know which way we’ve gone.

  Rattling sounds echo from the walls. The cloaking gas surges through the piping. Panic sets into my stomach. What if a valve fails? What if the pipe fitters forgot to set a joint? I push it away.

  “Down 180! Rotational by 90 degrees. Full burst for two seconds!”

  The ship groans, slips beneath the orbital plane of the station, and then spins on its end by a quarter turn. For the moment, we’re still slaves to orbital mechanics. No time to accelerate, so we have to hide.

  “Gas, go!”

  All through the ship comes the manual confirmation that the gas is flowing. Sight windows are the only way to be truly sure it’s moving. Some sensors just can’t be trusted for something so critical.

  The Tyrolean destroyer bounces almost right on top of us. Two drones shoot out, both splitting to either side of us. Weapons alarms ring on the bridge. A cloud of ball bearings explodes a kilometer above us on an odd angle.

  Fear slams into me. How can we get out? Good God, it’s so close we could spit at it. What am I doing? Is it
right? It’s just as the captain had taught me in those drills. But what if it isn’t enough?

  “Thermal peak on that destroyer,” Raj calls in a cool voice.

  I turn to Captain Hallverson for confirmation of my orders. Do the Tyroleans know where we are? Can they see a hole in our cloaking gas?

  “Continue. You’re doing fine.”

  “What are they doing?” I ask. This is exactly the second time I’ve endured something like this; the first, I was a cross between flotsam and jetsam.

  “Preparing to fire on us if they see a crack.”

  That is all they need. A single moment when they can get one reflection. One return. One glimmer of our soft underside. We time our maneuvers so they’re sensor dead. If we move too early, they’ll see it. If we move too late, they’ll watch it with their alien eyes.

  Every second that passes is a second more that we move away. Bit by bit, the Orca edges along and stays on the same course. The planet looms large beneath us, and we let the gravitational pull gently tug us in, giving us shelter of an entire planet.

  “Thermal spike!” Raj calls. I brace myself. Looking back now, it’s foolish; at that range, we’d be vaporized.

  “Neutron blaster. They just fired on the freighter!” Raj yells. She engages the rear display on the main monitor.

  The energy-dense rounds slam into the nose of the freighter and pass right out through the rear. Flames jet out and then die as they burn off the remaining oxygen in the ship. They fire again and again, each shot pummeling the hull and ripping jagged gashes all through her.

  We watch in silence. Their fate is set. Ours is still up for debate.

  Some starships die silently. There is no massive explosion or reactor breach. The commodore’s flagship, an old Mitsubishi Combine freighter, dies without a fight.

  The destroyer continues toward the orbital.

  Captain Hallverson steps to the front of the bridge and stands close to the monitor. “They didn’t come for us.”

  I’m about to ask what they came for when it happens.

  The destroyer turns itself broadside and opens fire on the orbital station. They want to send a message, one that is loud and clear. Stand with us. Or stand against us. No one is neutral any longer.